S'pore ice skating leader wins S$190,000 in damages after man calls her 'ungrateful b*tch' & 'incompetent'

A woman was awarded S$190,000 in damages by a Singapore court after winning a defamation suit against a man.

The woman, Alicia Tan, was formerly Honorary Secretary of the Singapore Ice Skating Association (SISA).

The man who defamed her, Pok Vic Sent, is the president of the Snow Leopard Speed Skating Club, which is affiliated with SISA.

Both have children who are short-track speed skaters, which falls under SISA.

The dissent

According to a Jan. 19 judgment, Pok defamed Tan on six separate occasions between November 2018 and September 2021.

This was when Tan was serving as Honorary Secretary of SISA.

Alongside a group of dissenters who also disliked Tan, Pok tried various ways to expel Tan from SISA's Exco.

Among these ways was a petition of no confidence, in which Pok alleged that she was "non-collaborative", "condescending", and operated "without checks and balances".

The petition got 50 signatures from across the skating community, primarily short-track parents.

But it was dismissed by SISA's Exco.

Pok also tried to prevent Tan from re-contesting as Honorary Secretary in 2021, a position that his wife intended to contest instead.

But Tan was nevertheless re-elected.

Abuse of power

According to the judge, Pok's attack on Tan was "personal".

He did not want her to be on SISA's Exco because her goals, and the community's goals, were "completely different" from when he first supported her appointment to the Exco.

His resentment was evidenced by how Pok described her as an "ungrateful b*tch" and a "pig", the judge said.

The "dissenting segment", which Pok saw himself as representing, had similar negative views towards Tan.

One of them called her a "b*tch" and a "black sheep", while another referred to her as a "fatty pig" and an "asshole".

All wanted her removed from the Exco. The judge pointed out that they had failed to get one of their own to successfully contest an election against Tan, who had been re-elected to the Exco repeatedly despite their opposition.

On one occasion, they even got their children to stage a mass absence from a training session at the ice rink in 2019.

This was so Pok could take a photo to prove that SISA gave preferential treatment to Tan's daughter, who was and still is a short-track speed skater on the national team.

The lawsuit

On Jan. 27, 2022, Tan issued a letter to Pok regarding the defamatory materials.

She asked him to apologise, promise not to repeat such allegations, and compensate her for damage to her reputation.

When Pok refused to apologise, Tan commenced legal proceedings on Oct. 27, 2022.

The judge said that there was no evidence that Tan was condescending and non-collaborative, as Pok had claimed, nor that she lacked transparency and care for the skating community.

Furthermore, the fact that the petition was signed by others does not make the claim true, but rather "shows that others may have shared [his] misguided view".

Echo chamber

The judge ultimately awarded Tan S$190,000 in damages to be paid by Pok.

This includes S$130,000 in general damages and S$60,000 in aggravated damages, over four different defamatory publications.

In his judgment, he warned that the case "illustrates the dangers of echo chambers, which may lack objectivity and fuel conduct that an individual may otherwise have avoided".

"[Pok's] actions went far beyond what he describes as 'common animosity'," the judge said.

"[Pok's] involvement with the dissenting segment and their group chat exchanges that repeatedly disparaged [Tan] created an environment that perpetuated negativity towards [Tan] and manifested in [Pok's] Exco Removal Vendetta.

While this environment may have reinforced the [Pok's] resolve, it did not give him an unfettered right to speak against [Tan]."

The judge also called for people to "regularly assess the company they keep and critically examine the views they hold".

Mothership understands that Pok intends to appeal the judgment.